Bottled water companies can have all the sustainable credentials in the world, but they are part of the problem. Photograph: amana productions inc./Getty Images/amana images RF

Business leaders often lay responsibility for the failure of sustainable consumption to go mainstream at the feet of consumers: "They don't understand what it means." Well, they're wrong. The world's consumers do understand what it means; it's just not what many in business understand it to be.

If we're going to get the paradigm shift that everyone is so eager to see, we need to start by focusing on the things that really matter. To understand what I mean, let me tell you the story of Icelandic Glacial.

Icelandic Glacial is a bottled water available in the UK, US, Canada and several other countries. It markets itself as the world's first carbon-neutral bottled water. Its processing plant, situated on Iceland's Olfus spring, runs on hydroelectric and geothermal energy. Its packaging is 100% recyclable and, to reduce CO2, it's even shipped from Iceland in the unused space of cargo ships that would have otherwise remained empty.

Icelandic Glacial has received sustainable certification for both the product and its processing. In 2007, it won the Bottle Water World design award for sustainability. It's even been certified by the Carbon Neutral company – the seal of approval for which takes centre stage on the bottle's label.

Many of you reading this will already be pondering the irony of a sustainable bottled water company tapping the very glaciers we need to preserve to survive – but give Icelandic Glacial some credit. In every sense this can be recognised as a sustainable product: it's recyclable, third-party certified, and CO2 neutral.

Yet this is not a sustainable solution. This is not what sustainability means to the consumer movement. Unfortunately for Icelandic Glacial – which appears genuine in its efforts – this bottled water represents the very antithesis of what sustainability means.

Meaningful sustainability for consumers cannot be captured on a label or celebrated with an industry award. Meaningful sustainability – the type of stuff that spurs paradigm shifts and reverses global trajectories – is about how we provide safe and sustainable drinking water for all, including the one billion consumers who currently have no access to it.

We cannot seriously talk about consumers not understanding or caring about sustainability and not consider the millions of consumers in the developing world without piped water, who are given no choice but to buy bottled alternatives at up to 10 times the price. That is what unsustainable consumption looks like.

The challenge is how we meet this consumer right to the satisfaction of basic needs in a sustainable way – in terms of access, quality, and affordability – as well as environmental impact. This is what the overwhelming majority of the world's consumers understand sustainability to be about.

Icelandic Glacial may have all the sustainability credentials the company could think of. It may well be a sustainable product in its own right. But it embodies the problem, not the solution, when it comes to sustainable living.

Sustainable consumption is about much more than marketing: much more than niche product lines, and, indeed, the polar opposite of fresh water bottled and sold at a huge mark up.

It's about creating accessible and stable markets that offer low-environmental impact, good quality products at a fair price, whether it is water, healthcare, food, financial services, or even access to the internet. Some pioneers in industry get that, but most can't see beyond the label.

So, how do we make the paradigm shift? Put bluntly, stop obsessing about the marketing strategy and CSR brochure and focus on the big meaningful changes that create a sustainable business regardless of consumer demand.

After all, sustainability is about meeting consumer needs, not creating consumer wants.

Luke Upchurch is head of communications and stakeholder relations at Consumers International, the global federation of consumer groups.